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by obstinatrix



Series: The Better Part of Valour [2]
Category: British Actor RPF
Genre: Age Difference, Fluff, Going to Waitrose, Luvvies, M/M, Mentor/Protégé, established casual relationship, idyll
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:21:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/obstinatrix/pseuds/obstinatrix
Summary: Perhaps it was just that this had become so normal that Tom's brain couldn't think of it as having had a beginning. He couldn't remember what he'd done, coming back to London off a film set, before he'd just trotted to the taxi rank and had a car drive him straight to Ken's.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Assume Ken is not married. 
> 
> This is set some time after they did Hamlet together. 
> 
> I have no idea if Ken really lives in Hampstead.

Tom couldn't remember the first time it happened. It seemed a ridiculous thought: he could remember the _before_ of it, picking out the gold of Ken's hair amid the dense crowd of a West End pub and blushing quietly to himself when their eyes met; and he could never forget the years and years of _after,_ the way Ken cupped the back of Tom's head in his broad hands when they hugged and the scratch of his stubble that would never quite shave smooth. And yet the question of how they got there--

It niggled at Tom a little, the forgetting. Had he been drunk? Unlikely. He remembered a time in Ken's spare bedroom, both of them up to their elbows in boxes of uncategorised gumph and the fair hair glinting on Ken's forearms; Ken crooking an eyebrow and then, later, Ken's mouth on Tom's throat, the warmth of him through his shirt. An early time, but...no, not the first. Perhaps it was just that this had become so normal that Tom's brain couldn't think of it as having had a beginning. He couldn't remember what he'd done, coming back to London off a film set, before he'd just trotted to the taxi rank and had a car drive him straight to Ken's.

He was tired, too many long flights and too much sun, and his own empty flat held little draw for him. The flat was just a place he slept sometimes, whereas Ken’s big house in Hampstead had a decade’s worth of Ken in it, a general comfortable clutteredness that made Tom feel rested. He let his brow rest against the window of the taxi as the rainy streets went by, the familiar grey of home. The taxi driver wore a turban and a rough East London accent with equal confidence and Tom smiled. Greg James nattered cheerily on the radio. Not long now, and the bright lights of LA would feel, as they should, like a half-remembered nightmare.

He dozed, not meaning to. The next second: Hampstead, and Ken's overgrown garden. Tom _tsked_ idly to himself as he walked up the path and rapped on the door. An unmentionable amount of money, and Ken still couldn't get round to hiring a gardener, preferring to live forever in the fiction that he would, one day, do the job himself. It was a very typically Ken failing, and Tom felt a pleasant little fizz of anticipation in his stomach as he waited on the step to be let in.

"I told you I gave you the new readings on Thursday," Ken said, inexplicably, as he opened the door. His voice was curt, and Tom blinked in mild alarm before he spotted the phone in one hand and what appeared to be a crumpled utility bill in the other. Ken's face went through an acrobatic performance of silent joy before the hand with the bill in it came out to cuff Tom around the neck and pull him in.

"No," said Ken into the phone, " _T_ _hursday._ I can send them again, but you've had--" A pause. "Yes, _yes."_

The arm of his glasses was pressing into the side of Tom's cheek. It was mildly uncomfortable, but the glasses were still a relatively new fixture and, embarrassingly, Did Things to Tom, so he didn't say anything. He entertained himself by carding a hand through Ken's hair and tugging it upward into a little precipice, which was one of his favourite private entertainments. Ken had hair like a thick soft brush which stayed wherever it was put, even at the apparent defiance of gravity and all God's earthly laws, and the liberal addition of grey (though he was dyeing it now) had only intensified the effect.

"Fine," Ken said, reaching up to put his hand over Tom's in gentle protest, "Fine, _fine._ I'll expect an updated bill." Then, after an immense and unanticipated tonal shift: "Bye." 

"'Bye,'" Tom mimicked, half-laughing, as Ken set the phone on the telephone table and ushered Tom in, closing the door behind him. They went through the usual sort of mutual gathering, neither quite knowing at first whose arms should have the upper hand, so to speak, until finally Tom lifted his chin and lodged it (it was a _bit_ of a stretch) atop Ken's head. He inhaled pensively. "You smell a bit like Pad Thai."

"You're hungry, I see."

"Mmm." After a moment's pause, Tom decided it was the house, rather than Ken, which was the specific source of the pleasant peanutty smell. He felt suddenly at ease in the quiet of the hallway, as if he could fall asleep standing. "You used to be taller, you know."

"Christ, why did I let you in?" Ken took the bag from Tom's hand, which served to suddenly remind him he was carrying it, and pointed in the direction of the stairs. "Straight to bed, trouble."

"Promises, promises," Tom said, but went obediently. Thirty hours of wakefulness seemed to have socked him all at once between the shoulderblades, and the promise of cool sheets was worth the effort of lugging his sleep-sodden body up two flights of stairs.

He woke up with what felt like a pillow folded awkwardly in half under the curve of his neck. The window was a pale grey silhouette on the opposite wall, but whether it was the dim glow of late evening or of a streetlight filtered through Ken's unmanicured trees, Tom couldn't be sure. He shifted and poked at the offending pillow, which turned out to be Ken's arm.

"Ow," said Ken amiably, and then, "Are you awake or just passing through?"

"Mmm." Tom rolled onto his side, unwilling to commit one way or the other, and contentedly bit Ken's forearm. "Hungry."

"Well, you can't eat that; I need it." Ken had adopted his gently scolding schoolmarm tone, which made Tom feel momentarily disgruntled until a conciliatory hand came to rest on the top of his head, tugging at the curls. "What do you want? Don't say pad thai."

"Mean," said Tom. He was being childish, which felt rather freeing and which he had missed. Deciding to luxuriate in it a little longer, he added, "You're cruel and horrible to me."

"Naturally," said Ken, and thumbed Tom's pouting lower lip. " _Known_ for it."  He tugged the lip gently and then let go. "And here I thought I was being the ideal host, letting you sleep and then offering you sustenance."

"Of which I've yet to see any evidence," Tom grumbled, resigning himself to wakefulness. He hauled himself into a sitting position with a groan. There was a curious swirling imprint on the back of his hand from the counterpane, which was new and scratchy. "Why have you got a counterpane?"

"It goes with the curtains," said Ken. "I put it on specially for you, so pretend it's always been there and don't complain about it." A stiff piece of cardboard suddenly materialised under Tom's nose; Tom managed to identify it, after a moment, as a takeaway menu. "Pick something and I'll summon the Deliveroo. Or shall I just do eggs?"

"Ooh, do eggs," Tom said, brightening at the thought. "I like the way you always burn the bottoms."

Ken grumbled something-- _with friends like these--_ but then the bed was shifting as he got up. Tom thought briefly and longingly of ketchup for a moment, opened his mouth to say something, and then promptly fell asleep again.

The smell of toast woke him: the old Etonian's smelling salts, as Hugh had once said. Tom rubbed the sleep from his eyes, took the plate from Ken's hand, and took a moment to appreciate the sight of him in his only pair of jeans, with the paint on the bum from that time he did half a wall in the bathroom and then abandoned it forever.

"If you married me," he mused, guiding sandwich to mouth, "would I be Lady Branagh?"

"You'd be a pain in my arse," said Ken, "but legally. Move over."

Tom moved two thirds of his weight obligingly onto Ken, who accepted it with a grunt and did not complain. Tom had that drifting feeling that was the result, he recognised, of terrible jetlag, but which felt oddly pleasant when he had somebody to feed him eggs and hold him in this comforting, curmudgeonly fashion. When Tom was tired or ill, Ken had a tendency to treat him like a child home from school with the flu, which Tom unashamedly adored and would draw out for as long as possible.

"Poor tired poppet," Ken crooned, as if on cue. Then, enquiringly, "Do you know about hangriness? Somebody told me about hangriness the other day and I had to stop myself telling them all it was a perfect description of you. But now you're more just...hired. Heepy."

"Stop portmanteauing," Tom said. Then, just as a test, "On the plane I was thinking about sucking you off."

"He says, enticingly taking an enormous bite of egg," said Ken. More gently: "That can wait until tomorrow, darling. Let's get our pyjamas on."

Tom had always thought that Ken was perfectly delightful to sleep with--actually _sleep_ with. It had been one of his lovelier early discoveries that Ken seemed to retain heat better than most people without it turning into sweatiness; he had a kind of firm stocky frame like a bolster meant to tuck into the curve of Tom's body. Sometimes he got a bit fat, which was also lovely because it gave Tom some curvy bits to squish until Ken began to object and did his semi-regular panic-diet malarkey, which mainly consisted of juicing vast quantities of green things and then complaining about them while jogging. Currently there was less to squish than Tom would like, because Ken had been tap-dancing, as anyone who had encountered him at any point in the past year had heard all about, but Tom still curled around him happily and pushed a knee between his legs.

"You're like a teddy," Tom mumbled into the gap between Ken's shoulderblades.

"Did you just call me _Daddy?"_ Ken sounded aghast in the darkness. "There's only so much I can attribute to jetlag, darling."

Tom pondered saying something entirely terrible in response, but thankfully or otherwise the jetlag overcame him and he fell asleep before he could put together the perfect horrifying sentence.

He woke, some indeterminable length of time later, to the sound of Ken cursing lavishly in another room. Tom knew it was genuine cursing because it had taken on that aggrieved Irish lilt Ken only regressed to when something had royally pissed him off. Following the sound, Tom groped along the landing like a blind man until he spotted Ken at the bottom of the stairs, holding what had once been a Waitrose bag but was now two handles and a gaping hole. An orange sat smugly on the bottom-most step as if it had been placed there specially. Sundry other grocery items (and some lubricant, Tom noted with interest, which meant Ken had sweetly braved the self-check) were littered about Ken's feet.

"Thank God I forgot to get more eggs," Ken said, noticing him. He sighed. "Oh, well. Morning, love."

"I can't believe you went to Waitrose without me," Tom complained, descending. Reaching the orange, he nudged it to the ground with his toe and wrapped both arms around Ken's neck. "You know how much I love Waitrose."

"I thought you only loved it for the free coffee, _which_ by the way they've stopped doing."

"I like the twisty doughnut things, with the sugar. And I like  _your_ Waitrose because nobody ever looks at me twice in it. There's always Hugh Grant or Kate Middleton or someone in there to be looking at." The benefits of living in Hampstead.

"Well, you should move here then. I don't know what's keeping you in Belsize Park, unless it's the tantalising possibility of running smack into Hugh bloody Laurie every time you go for a jog. You surely see enough of him as it is."

Tom bit his lip on a smile and refrained from comment. "I'm here  _now._ Come upstairs."

This seemed to cheer Ken up, or at least he shut his mouth and let Tom take his hand and lead the way, after a cursory backward glance to ensure there was nothing likely to perish on the hall rug.

The bed was as Tom had left it, duvet twisted and scratchy counterpane discarded on the floor. Tom briefly entertained a flash of characteristic embarrassment at this realisation before Ken distracted him from it by pushing him up against the wardrobe.

"Tom," Ken said in his ear; _"Thomas,"_ which nobody ever called him but Ken, like this, with his hands seeking skin at Tom's waist. He murmured along the line of Tom's jaw, scratchy and familiar, and Tom let his head fall back, baring his throat.

"Took you long enough," Tom said, just to feel the reproachful nip of Ken's fingers.

"Do you want to be a smartarse or do you want me to kiss you? Don't answer that: I know it's a very difficult decision for you. Regardless, I am  _going_ to kiss you."

"Oh no," said Tom, lowering his lashes and then looking up through them. "Poor me." If he slumped just a little and dipped his chin, he could almost pretend away the height difference. It was the bane of Tom's life that nearly everyone was shorter than he was. It made it so much harder to convey the desire to be kissed rather than to kiss; but, fortunately, Ken had figured that out long ago.

Ken had a particular move which was so very much A Move that Tom felt an ass for falling for it every time, and yet invariably did. It comprised a sort of simultaneously swooping and lifting action which Tom was almost certain had been taught painstakingly in a workshop in 1983; he was _pretty_ sure he'd even seen Ken execute The Move in a film, and still Tom went pathetically liquid, as if on command, when Ken gathered him up and kissed him in this fashion. The Move sang to the part of Tom which had always secretly yearned to be hoisted aloft by a muscular ballet dancer and which would absolutely take what it could get in that area.

For a minute or two, Tom drifted in it, letting Ken kiss him softly at first, and then deeper, tonguing the corner of Tom's mouth the way he knew always wracked Tom with shudders. The scent of him was like a sense-memory of simpler times: Persil and Old Spice and the warm smell of his skin. Tom pushed his fingers into the thick of Ken's hair, low at the back of his skull, and tugged until Ken made a sound of not-quite-discontent and delivered a bite of admonishment to Tom's lower lip.

Then Tom shivered, half-consciously attempting to pull Ken more firmly against him, and the wardrobe rocked ominously on the hardwood floor.

 _"Must_ you try to do me vertically," Tom complained, in a tone rather out of keeping with the way his free hand was groping Ken's arse, "when there's a bed just there? I don't doubt your masculinity, you know."

"Hmm." Ken kissed him again, lingeringly, as if weighing up the options. "A good point, well made, with a suitable amount of flattery. Come on, then."

"Carry me?"

"Who do you think I am, the fucking Milk Tray Man?" Ken paused in his kissing long enough to gesture extravagantly bedwards. "Under your own power or not at all, darling. You've got two feet and a back that's fully functional, which is more than can be said for me these days."

Still, when it came to putting his back into it, Ken seemed to be doing all right according to Tom's yardstick. When Tom bounced onto the mattress and held out his arms, Ken settled between Tom's spread thighs and bore him down, just firmly enough to make Tom doubt his ability to reverse their positions without significant effort.

He squirmed a little, just as a test, and flushed with pleasure when Ken resisted with his full weight, one hand curving under Tom's thigh to hitch him closer. "Are you going to be good? Boys who give me trouble don't get nice things, you know."

This was not, in Tom's experience, remotely true, but he very much appreciated Ken saying it. "I'll be good. Kiss me."

"Say please." Ken was trying to look stern, but Tom could feel him getting hard.

Tom bit his lip. _"Please_ kiss me."

If Ken were _really_ stern, he would have resisted, but because he was Ken, he melted at once under the look Tom was giving him, and Tom spent a happy minute being thoroughly kissed and urging Ken against him with his heel until a pleasant undulation had been established.

Ken said in his ear, "God, you're lovely. My darling. Beautiful boy." He sounded almost pained, breathlessly amazed and completely sincere, despite his apparent lack of taste; Tom could have purred. He settled for arching his back and turning his face to the side, baring the curve of his neck to Ken's mouth.

"Have you missed me?"

It was safe to ask a technically closed question of Ken; Tom had never heard a one-word answer from him in their decade's acquaintance. Even when he only said _yes,_ he would say it over and over. Now, Ken shivered and nuzzled into the soft place behind Tom's ear, his breath hot and shallow on Tom's neck. " _Yes,_ God. So much, it's been months. Look at your lovely curls coming back, sweetheart."

Tom startled a laugh. "Are they?"

"Yes, despite your efforts to suppress. I love your curls, and your lovely lovely skin. Ivory and gold."

Before Ken, Tom couldn't have imagined hearing Wilde obliquely quoted in praise of his beauty and responding with anything other than disbelief and, probably, laughter, but this was far from the most ridiculous thing Ken had said to him in bed. Ken had, in fact, quoted more than one sonnet in full, delivered as earnestly as if it were being composed on the spot, and Tom had gone practically liquid for it. Everything about Ken was like this: a little Too Much, but very sincerely so, and the result of long exposure was that Adequate began to feel Not Enough by comparison. The thought of fucking someone without a continuous commentary now struck Tom as somehow lacking and clinical, even if it did mean sacrificing a bit of kissing.

"Aren't I too old for all that?" Tom said, half-teasing, but half craving the reassurance. It had been the crowning moment of his life when Ken had given him the Olivier _Hamlet--_ **_the_ ** _Hamlet,_ which had been passed down via O'Toole and Jacobi to Ken, and which now Ken had entrusted to Tom's stewardship--but there was something bittersweet about it, too; the passing of the torch. Tom had no desire to step out from Ken's glow, the light he cast like a beacon to which Tom could always return.

"Don't be ridiculous," Ken told him, very firmly, as if he understood. And, after all, if it had set up a strange ache in Tom's chest to take the torch, it must have cost Ken more to offer it. "Always my boy."

Tom's throat felt abruptly tight, and his anxiety seemed to ebb away under Ken's warm blue gaze. Ken cupped his cheek, and Tom couldn't help but turn his face into the gentle hand, kissing the palm. He couldn't speak, but Ken looked as if he expected a response and Tom wasn't in the business of letting Ken down.

"I'm all _verklempt,"_ he explained apologetically, and Ken's eyes crinkled fondly.

"You big silly. You worry altogether too much, you know." Ken kissed the corner of Tom's mouth, lightly, and then again more slowly, until Tom exhaled beneath him and his mouth opened. Ken's fingers traced the line of Tom's neck, picking up shivers. "I--"

He cut himself off, biting his lip, but Tom could see in his face that he'd been about to say the thing they, by unspoken mutual agreement, didn't say. It wasn't fair, when they couldn't be properly together, but Tom _did,_ and Ken did, and the thought hit Tom suddenly square in the gut. The safe press of Ken's warm weight on top of him was no longer enough; the fear of imminent separation rose up in Tom in an urgent wave and he twisted his fingers in Ken's hair, pulling.

"I know," he said, "I _know."_

Ken seemed to understand. His pupils had gone all wide in a way that made Tom tingle, and the next second, Ken was kissing him so fiercely that Tom let out a joyful shout of surprise into Ken's mouth, clutching at him. Ken's hands roved over him, finding their way beneath cotton and onto skin. Tom held on, submitting to the pleasantly rough manhandling until finally their clothes had been dispensed with (" _Fuck,"_ Ken said roughly in his ear as he yanked at his own belt, which Tom rather enjoyed) and he could rub himself bare against Ken's stomach.

"My sweetheart," Ken said, "my darling. Darling boy."

Beneath him, Tom arched, grasping; Ken had settled himself firmly between Tom's spread thighs again and his big hands were groping, squeezing, splaying Tom wide. He'd forgotten how much he liked this feeling: the glorious surrender of being spread open by a man's warm hands, and he arched into it, cock pulsing as Ken's hands shifted from thigh to arse.

"Kiss me," Tom said, panting; _"p_ _lease--"_

Ken did, unquestioning. This time, the kiss was deep at once, their mouths softened by want and sliding easily over each other. Ken's tongue crooked against Tom's, tracing the roof of his mouth, and Tom shivered, rubbing himself against Ken's stomach and yielding to his slick fingers.

"You're so beautiful," Ken told him, sounding pained in his earnestness as he pushed two fingers into Tom's body, coaxing him open. "Can I--can I--"

"Yes, yes…" Tom was nodding, eyes closed and mouth open, the air suddenly thin. His hands groped over Ken's shoulders and back, his thick firm waist, and when Ken's cock pressed against him, he shivered, wanting it. Sometimes, he'd be home for months and they could do this day and night until Tom's body knew the shape of Ken's cock as if it was part of him, but it had been months and months and he wanted, he _wanted--_

Ken didn't believe in gentle introductions, shoving home in a hard firm thrust that set Tom keening beneath him, every muscle in his body reacting. He felt beautifully split open, and yet Ken's mouth was so gentle on his throat, his collarbones; Ken's hands on him were as gentle as the pressure of his dick was hard. It was different, being fucked like this by someone who loved you, and Tom _knew_ Ken did, even if they didn't--even if they never--

"Sweetheart," Ken panted in his ear, his hands on Tom's hips as he fucked him. "God, Tom, I've missed you so much; I miss you so much when you aren't here, when you're--"

Tom's hand in Ken's hair cut him off mid-sentence, but Tom was surging towards completion and he wanted Ken's mouth put to other uses. Ken moved as directed, biting at Tom's nipple, which he knew Tom loved of old. It was all over Tom now, inside and out, the feeling; his whole pelvic area was nothing but a spasm of yearning as Ken moved, on him and in him, and his cock twitched, jerked against Ken's belly-- _God--_

"Oh fuck!"

He lurched, bowing up off the bed, and Ken held onto him as he shook and shivered, pulsing come all over the counterpane with an indecent lack of consideration. Still, Ken didn't seem to mind, and at any rate he _should_ have expected this. Tom's hand was clenched too fiercely in Ken's hair, but Tom recalled that Ken had never minded that much, either; and indeed he was gasping against Tom's throat, hips stuttering, " _God,_ Thomas, _god--"_

They were far beyond condoms. Tom knew he oughtn't like it as much as he did, the hot wetness of Ken ejaculating inside him. There was a word for boys like that, something uncomplimentary touted around on Grindr and other young people things Tom had never quite understood. But the fact remained that it sent him into a strange, pleasant zone inside his own mind at the sensation: Ken pulsing inside him, and then the hot trickle of it as Ken pulled out. Tom felt at once dirty and cleansed, defiled and blessed. It was gratifying. That was all he could think to say on the subject.

Afterwards, when he could move, Ken curved an arm around Tom's shoulders and pulled him in, until Tom's head was on Ken's chest and they could breathe haltingly together.

"I love your visits," Ken said, breathless, into Tom's hair. "Have I said that?"

"Always nice to hear," Tom said. He hadn't meant to smile, but he could feel it in his cheeks all the same.


	2. Revenge Porn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is no revenge porn in this whatsoever. ~300 words of Tom Hiddleston bickering with Benedict Cumberbatch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This nebulously falls into the same universe as the main fic, so I am putting it here to make it look as if I have only written one pointless story about mid-life-crisis!Hiddleston being cheered up by a random friend.

"This," Benedict said, righting the camera on the coffee table and leaning back to admire his handiwork, "is probably the stupidest thing we've ever done." 

" _Not_ true," Tom countered. "What about Hong Kong? Or that time we decided we'd be fine without sunscreen because it was cloudy? Or--"

"Well, it's hard to be definitive about these things, but this is definitely up there." Benedict eyed the camera critically. "I mean, what if we fall out and you commit a heinous act of revenge porn upon me? It's a very silly idea to give anyone that level of power over one. I heard all about it on Newsbeat." 

"I'm not going to _revenge porn_ you," Tom scoffed. "I'd be _revenge-porning_ myself, then, wouldn't I?" He chivvied Benedict firmly in the direction of the settee until Ben, grumbling, collapsed upon it. 

"What're you going to do with it, then?" 

" _I_ don't know," Tom said. "Send it to Ken, probably -- 'Look, Ben's excellent at naked acting!'" 

"You wouldn't." Benedict shot the camera a quizzical look. "Or would you? Is that you, Mr Branagh? Should I be casting-couching it here? Whatever you're doing next, I'd be _wonderful_ in it." 

"Oh, hush," Tom cut him off. "I'm not going to send it to Ken. And you know exactly what _you'll_ be doing next, or you should, at any rate." Taking Ben's hand, he placed it firmly on his own hip and quirked an eyebrow. 

"Bossiness doesn't become you," Ben lied. His thumb was already working the button of Tom's jeans. 

Tom smiled beatifically.


End file.
